Fort Bend County's election chief quits

His resignation comes a week after he criticized voting machines

ERIC HANSON, Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle

Published 6:30 am, Wednesday, February 20, 2008

RICHMOND — The election administrator of Fort Bend County resigned Tuesday, just two weeks before the primary election and one week after he said the county should get rid of its electronic voting machines.

J.R. Perez handed in his resignation during a meeting of the county's Election Commission. In a two-sentence letter Perez said he was leaving the county effective Feb. 29 for "personal reasons," said Fort Bend County Judge Bob Hebert.

The election commission consists of the county clerk, the tax assessor collector, the county judge and the local chairpersons of the Democratic and Republican parties. The election administrator is hired by the election commission, but county commissioners control the budget.

Perez, who was hired as election administrator in June 2006, did not return calls for comment.

The resignation comes one week after Perez told county commissioners he wanted to scrap the electronic eSlate voting system and return to a paper ballot and optical scan operation.

Cast ballots early

Perez said the county's 830 eSlate voting machines are not enough to handle an expected 40 percent voter turnout for the March 4 primary election. He said there could be long lines of people waiting to vote at polling places.

There are about 260,000 registered voters in Fort Bend County.

The projected turnout for the upcoming election is about double what the county usually experiences in a general election.

"If I had a normal primary we would be in good shape," Perez said last week.

However, Hebert said the county has enough machines and officials are making a strong publicity effort to get people to take advantage of early voting.

"Avoid the long lines, vote early," Hebert said Tuesday.

Hebert said it could be costly to abandon the eSlate system and that there could be repercussions because the county used $2 million in federal funds to help pay for the devices.

"We might actually owe most of that money back," Hebert said Tuesday.

Hebert said his county and other counties in Texas have experienced no serious problems with the machines.

The machines are widely used in Texas and across the country. But, last year, Colorado officials rejected electronic voting devices and officials in Ohio called for a return to paper ballots after deciding the kind of click-wheel voting machines used in the Houston area were unreliable and vulnerable to manipulation of election results.

And in November, Wharton County Republican Party officials got rid of electronic voting devices and decided to use paper ballots for the March 4 primary after a machine malfunctioned in an earlier election.

Praise for eSlate

Primary elections are conducted by political parties. The parties often contract with counties to administer the elections. The primary election process is overseen by the Texas secretary of state.

Democrats in Wharton County will continue to use the electronic voting machines.

The eSlate machines, which cost about $2,500 each, were first used in a Fort Bend County election in November 2005.

Harris County voters have used the eSlates since 2001 and have had a good experience with the machines, said Harris County Clerk Beverly Kaufman.

Kaufman said the county has about 10,000 eSlate units for roughly 1.8 million voters.

"We were the first big jurisdiction to buy the eSlate, and we have not regretted our decision," she said.